Greetings,
I'm trying to install Linux Mint 18 on my desktop PC from a DVD disc. I tried to go into CMOS/BIOS and set the boot priority to "DVD drive first" then save and exit. However, whenever I reboot my PC it still continues to boot to the hard disc first which brings up Windows 10. It never even boots the optical disc drive at all. What am I doing wrong?
Thank you

I had a similar issue with two separate motherboards (and the same sata DVD drive.) It turns out that just setting up the boot order was not enough. I also had to make sure that the drive was set up for IDE mode and not AHCI mode in BIOS. It would not boot in AHCI mode at all.

Might be worth a try... and enable booting from a USB (if not enabled already) and make it first in the boot order. You may have to press an F key (not sure which on your hardware but on mine, it's F12) to get a boot menu & select "USB".

austin.texas wrote:DId you use a DVD-R?
DVD-RW are not too reliable for this use.
Can you test the DVD on a different computer?

What should I have used instead?

Just don't use DVD-RW.
If you want to try putting it on a USB drive, the Rufus program is a reliable Windows program to use to create the USB.

Before burning a DVD (OR before downloading another .iso) you should check the integrity of the downloaded .iso file by checking the sha256sum
That will tell you if the download is good.
The sha256sum verification is a bit complicated, so I have put it into a script to (hopefully) make it easier.
I will use MInt 18 Cinnamon 64bit as an example.
You can substitute a different Mint 18 .iso (other than Cinnamon 64bit), or a different download folder - but all files should be downloaded to one folder.

Step 1: Download or move the Mint 18 .iso file into your Downloads folder.
Step 2: Open your text editor and copy the script contents here, and paste into your text editor. Save the file in your Downloads folder as sum.sh
Step 3: Open a terminal and change directory to the Downloads folder:

Well, I went to the garage and dug out an old laptop pc I had. I put the DVD disc in the disc drive, booted the machine and it found and booted up the disc with the .iso image with Linux Mint 18 just fine.... no problems. So I know the disc is good, it's just that my newer desktop PC and newer laptop aren't seeing or recognizing the disc for some reason...

Last edited by Punchy71 on Wed Jul 27, 2016 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Just an idea >>> Copy the LM18 ISO to a USB stick. Get another USB stick that is ~2 to 4 GB. Boot the old computer with the DVD you have. Then plug in both USB sticks. Then use the Mint USB writer in Mint 18 to burn the ISO (on the first USB stick) onto the second empty USB stick. Then see if you can boot the newly created bootable USB stick on the machine that won't boot to the DVD...

P.S.: Check the sha256sum of the ISO first in order to confirm it's integrity.

For the purposes of fiddling with multiple versions, I usually buy a 10 pack of 4GB sticks on Amazon for about $27 ($2.70 each)! They are available in a multitude of colors and have many uses... You can probably guess the color I got...

I was successfully able to copy over the .iso image of Linux Mint 18 to the second USB stick I found using "USB writer" in Linux Mint 18 booting up on the DVD and running live on the old laptop.

Then I tried to see if my newer desktop PC would recognize the USB stick with the .iso image and rebooted the machine. When it came back up it still boots up into Windows 10. So it still only see's the hard disk and ignores both the optical drive and at least one of the USB drives (this tower box has numerous USB sockets/drives on it).

Then I tried to see if my newer laptop PC would recognize the same USB stick and rebooted it. When it came back up, it saw the stick and was able to boot from it just fine. I went ahead and installed the Linux Mint 18 from the USB stick onto this newer laptop.

So, all in all, I'm about half way to where I wanted to be originally.